Why are there so many Hindu Gods and Goddesses?

I know I am not well versed in ancient scriptures nor have any knowledge of Vedas but what ever I have read , it seems that idol worship was never part of Hinduism . It came much later. Maybe in the periods when Puranas were written or may be still later period.

Initially Hindus worshipped forces of nature like Sun, Moon, Thunder etc. Later it seems animal sacrifices were done to propitiate the forces of nature .

So why suddenly so many Gods and Goddess came into existence ? What was the purpose ? Today we have different gods representing different things. Often people find it funny and make fun of it also.

In fact while responding on a blog reverence and respect by Manasji , a thought came to my mind. It seems that with increase in population , different tribes & communities , differences began to arise amongst the humans . Maybe the rat race we talk about today had started millions of years back. People started losing values . Desires driven by senses began to rule the human behaviour . Maybe some societal values were needed to bring peace and prosperity . Maybe some fear needed to be instilled in the people .

Probably this led to the creation of Gods and Goddesses by our wise sages .

Goddess Prithvi....it is goddess earth that sustains life and we must always pay respect to her. That is before building a house ," Bhumi Pujan" is done. Today we are indiscriminately building houses , cutting down trees and misusing the land available to us. As a consequence of it we are suffering with regular flooding in cities and have even witnessed disastrous mountain Tsunami last year in Uttarakahnd .

Lord Vayu.....without Vayu life is not possible . It is Prana . Yoga teaches us to take care of our breath. Man can live without food and water for much longer period but without Vayu or Prana..one cannot survive beyond few minutes. Taking care of it gives us good health.

Goddess Saraswati ....goddess of knowledge . We must respect the giver of knowledge ...Guru, books , instruments of writing etc. we must not misuse our knowledge for destruction or harming others.

Goddess Laxmi ....goddess of wealth . It means we must respect money. We must use it judiciously and not waste it on whimsical desires . Today children seem to have lost respect for money because often they get things easily in life and fail to understand the hard work done to earn it. It is the fault of the parents , who never teach the children to value money. We must teach our children not to waste things .

Annapurna Devi...goddess of food. We must pray before we consuming food . There are many who do not even get a one proper meal a day . We must show respect for the food that we get at every meal. We must not waste food .

We have Vishwakarma Puja done by the labourers for the instruments they use in their work. It is to give respect to the instruments that are his means of survival and existence in this world.

Goddess Durga or Shakti ...tells us that we must use our physical or mental powers for the welfare of humanity and not misuse it ever.

Animals were given the position of transporters of these Gods and Goddesses , so that we automatically learn to give respect to all animals as well. Trees are worshipped on many occasions and we have festivals like Lohri to worship the harvest . In fact for every season we have a festival of harvest . Rain God is worshipped because we cannot sustain life without rains. They are our source of drinking water and agriculture .

I know I have named very few gods and goddess . Basically I wanted to convey that we have have gods and goddesses for everything so that we learn to respect this life and all that makes this life beautiful. Everything has a place and reason in this universe and we must respect it all.

What do you think ? Please share your views on why we have so many gods and goddesses and also share about more gods and goddesses and what do they represent .